Turkish Film Poster Exhibit and Film Screenings

Turkısh Fılm Poster Exhıbıt
Stanford University Cecil H. Green Library
South Portal Lobby
3-14 October 2011

Stanford University's Mediterranean Studies Forum, the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, and the Stanford University Arts Initiative will be showcasing Turkish Film Posters from the collection of Stanford Libraries and Academic Information Resources. The exhibition will be held 3-14 October, 2011 in the South Portal Lobby of Cecil H. Green Library.
The exhibition will feature rare, yet highly sought-after, hand-drawn film posters that date back to the early 1950s offering the best examples of the Turkish film industry's golden years. Turkish Film Poster Exhibit will highlight concepts such as foreign adaptations and imitations, Western and Eastern influence and representations of gender, minority, or majority, and as a result will provide a base for discussion between Turkish cinema and other cinemas. By providing visual print materials and scholarly research, we expect to initiate further discussion on interpretation of poster art as historical artifact and Turkish cinema in general, and incorporating cinema in teaching of humanities and social sciences in particular. The exhibit is curated under the guidance of Burcu Karahan Richardson (Turkish Language & Literature Lecturer, Department of Comparative Literature) in 
collaboration with John A. Eilts (Curator for Islamic and Middle Eastern Collection in Stanford University Libraries), and David Giovacchini (Bibliographer for the Arts in the Islamic World in the Islamic and Middle Eastern Collection, Stanford University Library.)
Programming is partially made possible by the support of the Turkish Cultural Foundation, Stanford Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages, and Stanford Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. Turkish Pop Cinema (2005), a documentary on popular Turkish films of 1960s and 1970s and Tarkan vs. the Vikings (1971), a definite cult classic and an adaptation of an extremely popular local comic book series by Burak Sezgin will be screened on 12 October 2011 in Pigott Hall, Room 113 at 7:00 p.m. as part of the Turkish Film Poster Exhibition and Burcu Karahan Richardson’s “COMPLIT 144/244A The Interplay between Turkish Cinema and Literature.” Q&A will follow.
The exhibition and films screenings are free and open to the public.
For more information contact Associate Director Burçak Keskin Kozat at medstudies [at] stanford.edu (medstudies[at]stanford[dot]edu)

Turkısh Fılm Screening
12 October 2011, 7:00 pm
Pigott Hall Room 113 (450 Serra Mall)

    •    “Turkish Pop Cinema Documentary”
7:00 pm
USA, 2005, Unrated, 25 mins. (Turkish with English Subtitles)
Written, produced, and directed by Pete Tombs & Andy Starke
Sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum

Synopsis: The documentary serves as an introduction to Turkish action, sex and fantasy films of 60’s and 70’s. It presents footage from the films themselves and contains several interviews with Turkish film legends such as Yilmaz Atadeniz and Cüneyt Arkin, who starred in cult classics like The Man Who Saved The World (Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam.)
 
    •    “Tarkan vs. The Vikings”
7:30 pm
Turkey, 1971, Unrated, 86 mins. (Turkish with English Subtitles)
Directed by Mehmet Aslan - Written by Sezgin Burak – Cast: Kartal Tibet, Fatma Belgen, and Bilal İnci
Sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum

Tarkan, an adaptation of an extremely popular local comic book series based on the adventures of the eponymous hero, is considered similar to Robert E. Howard’s Conan. Written by Sezgin Burak, the series lasted many years and inspired an entire series of Tarkan films. Tarkan is a classic loner hero raised by wolves, who roams the plains with his faithful wolf, Kurt, is still closer to animals than to people. In this movie Tarkan takes on a band of vicious Vikings, who take great pleasure in sacrificing nubile maidens to a hungry octopus!